The relation of depressive symptoms and marital quality of depressed and nondepressed mothers to offspring's perceived attachment: A multiple-domain growth analysis

Andrea Kay Wittenborn, Purdue University

Abstract

The link between maternal depression and adverse child development has been well established (Goodman & Gotlib, 1999). Depressed mothers experience significant difficulties in many domains (i.e. personal functioning, parenting, environment stress), all of which can influence the mother-child relationship and, specifically, mother-child attachment (Murray, Halligan, Adams, Petterson, & Goodyer, 2006). Marital conflict is often present in families where parental psychopathology exists (Hammen, 2002) and marital conflict repeatedly has been associated with insecure child attachment. The relation between maternal depression, marital quality, and child's attachment has been primarily examined in cross-sectional samples. The present study extended prior research by investigating this relation longitudinally using a quasi-experimental design and by examining all constructs simultaneously. Growth modeling was used to examine how marital quality and depressive symptoms of depressed mothers receiving treatment and nondepressed mothers were related to child and adolescent attachment. According to results from the final model, nondepressed mothers experience less depressive symptoms and marital quality than mothers being treated for depression across 22 months. Thus, even after mothers were treated for depression, their levels of marital quality and depressive symptoms were consistently less optimal than the levels for nondepressed mothers. Additionally, offspring of nondepressed mothers experience higher attachment security than children of depressed mothers, even after the depressed mothers were treated. In essence, treating mothers' depressive symptoms does not appear to improve their marital quality and mother-child attachment to the level of mothers not suffering from depression. While these findings may seem discouraging, perhaps incorporating relationship focused interventions in addition to depression treatment could produce more promising results. Future studies are needed to examine if marital and family focused, as well as depression treatment allow depressed mothers being treated and their offspring to experience similar levels of marital quality and mother-child attachment as nondepressed mothers and their children.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Sprenkle, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Developmental psychology|Psychotherapy|Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology

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